by Burton Dale

Created on: September 12, 2009

SECRETS FROM THE TOMATO LADY

Vi is 96 years old, looks about 60 and is sharp as a tack mentally. She is known by many in the West Palm Beach area as "The Tomato Lady." She grows some of the best tasting tomatoes you have ever eaten and she has agreed to share with you her secrets for growing her tomatoes in South Florida.

Vi has sung in the choir at St. Juliana Catholic Church for many years, and it was hard to believe it when she said she is 96 years old. When she was asked the secret for her remarkable age and young appearance, she said there was no secret, she goes to church, grows her garden, eats out once a week with friends, and keeps busy. Though she did not attribute tomatoes to her advanced age, she eats a lot of tomatoes, and eats a lot of her homemade tomato sauce. Could eating a lot of homegrown tomatoes play a part in her fountain of youth?

As for the secret of her wonderful tomatoes, she says that she never buys seeds, but saves seeds from tomatoes that have a good flavor. She relates that she never buys tomato plants and always grows her tomatoes from seed.

She told me that she plants only in large pots here in Florida because otherwise the nematodes get on the roots of the tomatoes and cause the plant to fail. When questioned how she plants the seeds, the answer was equally simple. "I put the seeds, one seed to a hole, in a large pot to make many tomato plants. I water the seeds, and when they come up and get larger, I transplant the best plants one plant to a pot."

She said she waters the plants regularly to keep them from drying out, but only fertilizes them one time a month. When I asked her what she uses for fertilizer, she said she uses Rapid-Gro that comes in little bags in a box and is applied when she waters the plants. I asked her if she has any problems with bugs, and she said she does not use bug spray because there are no bugs except for nematodes. And the nematodes problem is solved by growing the plants in pots. "The ground has nematodes," she said.

Vi, whose real name is Yolanda Condo, came from Italy when she was seven years old. Her family came from Calabria which on the map of Italy is found mainland at the toe in the southern part of the country close to the island of Sicily. There are beautiful pictures of her and her family in the living room. Church, Family, and Country are important things in every Italian family, and so is gardening. Vi keeps these things close to her, and now she shares her secret of growing tomatoes so you can grow them too.

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